Earlier this year the European Union announced that its member countries will soon reach their emissions targets for 2020. The problem facing Europe is one that is familiar to those with experience in manufacturing or efficiency optimization: the deception of low-hanging fruit. It needs a single energy market to move forward.[read more]

The years-long fight over the Keystone XL pipeline appears to be entering its final chapter. The new Congress recently passed legislation requiring the Obama Administration to approve it. Now the President must decide whether or not to make good on a threat to veto any bill forcing his hand on the issue.[read more]

Global oil prices have been in freefall over the past six months, tumbling from a high of $115 per barrel to less than $50 per barrel this week. And that changes, well, pretty much everything in the energy world. To get to the bottom of all of it, I recently hosted a live #EnergyChat on Twitter on January 12th.[read more]

Is the UNFCCC still a viable pathway to confront climate change? Are bilateral deals, like the US-China partnership, an alternative to the UNFCCC process? In collaboration with Shell's Future Energy Fellows Program we hosted an #energychat webinar to find out how experts felt about the subjects.[read more]

When the New York Public Service Commission opened its historic “Reforming the Energy Vision” proceeding, it recognized that the way utility companies have been regulated is out of sync with innovations in technology, business realities, and evolving customer needs, including the need to reduce harmful pollution.[read more]

Major advances in materials science and manufacturing are driving down the cost and upping the performance of energy storage at a rapid pace. With energy storage on the cusp, The Energy Collective hosted a live Twitter conversation to explore the implications for electricity systems and markets.[read more]

Experts, decision-makers and high level authorities have had conflicting positions on whether or not shale gas, and the North American shale boom, presents a threat to GCC’s natural gas market; with some ignoring it and others warning of its upcoming results. But what should we expect?[read more]

Globally, energy storage mandates are on the rise. Countries like Japan, China, India, Germany and the US have all issued storage targets and commenced development projects aiming to support the growth of their electric energy needs as well as balance the variability of load on their existing generation assets.[read more]

With the potential closure of the Indian Point nuclear facility looming, Consolidated Edison (ConEd) in collaboration with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) put forth a plan to reduce peak loads for the New York city area.[read more]

Gulf states are often characterized by a general economic prosperity achieved through the sale of natural resources. Qatar is attempting to become the exception to this rule – their impetus for differentiation comes in the form of technological adaptation.[read more]

If we are entering the ‘Golden Age of Gas,’ a phrase used by the IEA since 2011 to describe the expansion of global Liquid Natural Gas trading and the US shale gas boom, the implications for producer nations like Qatar should be ubiquitously positive.[read more]

Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” in the United States has created an extraordinary economic opportunity in the nation’s energy sector while it has at the same time has posed a nearly unprecedented amount of environmental concern.[read more]

Across the Midwest and Eastern US and into Canada, the extreme weather events of 2014’s winter tested the regional energy markets in unprecedented ways. Successive polar vortexes swept cold over North America and pushed energy prices to record highs.[read more]

When 13 MW of renewable capacity is installed in the United States, understandably, no one bats an eyelash. When 13 MW of renewable capacity is installed in the Gulf, there’s a multimillion-dollar inauguration party, in true Gulf opulence.[read more]

Sustainable construction was first embraced in the UAE by Abu Dhabi, with the creation of a building and design methodology platform in 2010 known as Estidama, to promote the core sustainability principles of the Abu Dhabi 2030 master plan.[read more]

Home to some of the world’s highest per-capita carbon emitters (we’re looking at you, Kuwait and Qatar) and per-capita energy consumers, our hydrocarbon-rich friends of the GCC have seldom been seen as the beacon of sustainable living. But efforts are being made to go green, and "sustainability" is becoming a buzzword in the region — in the UAE, in particular.[read more]

The Middle East still sits on the throne of oil. In 2013, oil production in the region constituted almost a third of the globe's oil production. Yet despite all its richness, the region has several challenges to overcome that threaten its exports capability.[read more]

In both densely packed urban centers and remote rural areas, microgrids represent an important investment, and one in which renewables could play a major role. But how do they fit into President Obama's "All of the Above" platform?[read more]